Taiwan’s legislature on Monday approved the central government’s budget for 2020. Lawmakers came back for an extraordinary session starting on January 14 to finalize the budget. The current legislature will remain in place until January 31. Lawmakers who were elected in January will take their posts on February 1.
The approved budget for 2020 allocates approximately NT $2.07 trillion (around US$69 billion) in government spending. That’s slightly lower than the estimated tax revenues for 2020, which is about NT$2.1 trillion (USD$70 billion). That means that this is the first time in 22 years that the central government will achieve a budget surplus.
The initial budget proposal included a total of 2,473 proposed items. Cross-party negotiations slashed 1.17% from that budget. That’s a cut of around NT$24.6 billion (US$820 million) from the initial budget proposal.